Iowa Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Naig, made a visit to Red Barn Solutions in Audubon County Friday afternoon, as part of his tour to all 99 counties across the state. Naig visited with Mark Trapolino, Business Development and Co-owner of the manufacturing company that is innovating products and practices to address real-world challenges that are faced by farmers. Not only has Red Barn Solutions fabricated attachments to combines to allow for cover crop planting while farmer’s harvest, but they are also investing into soil health, interseeding and feeing with the soil with biology to avoid chemicals, promoting food nutritional density. Naig said he was very impressed how the family-owned business saw problems and worked endlessly to provide solutions not only for their family farm, but to others.
The Red Barn building originated in 1898 as a traditional farm barn, before being transformed to a machine shop for Puck Custom Enterprises (PCE) in 1998. In 2019, siblings Dan Puck, Nancy Trapolino, and Mary Felstead all sold off shares for PCE to establish Red Barn Solutions. After some tough times in 2020 due to the rise of manufacturing materials, the company pushed through designing more products now than ever that Naig says will further promote conservation efforts.
Naig says Iowa has a strong foundation for conservation efforts, but he says with the work that the Red Barn Solutions families are completing, Iowa farmers are going to expand those practices even further.
Pictures from Friday’s visit can be found included below.
